Psychology of Skiing

ANCHORS- the secret weapon for competitions

2011-04-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

COMPETITIONS

One of the most mentally demanding parts of skiing is when it comes to competing, as this is a time when you are expected to perform at your best. With a crowd eagerly watching and the judges examining your every move this highly demanding situation can cause anxiety for a lot of riders. Also knowing you only have two or sometimes even one chance to complete a successful run only adds more pressure to the situation. A slip or lapse in concentration could be the difference between winning and losing on the day.

Aside from all this and one of my main qualms with competing in this 2 run format, is the length of time the riders have to wait around before it is their turn to drop in. This can sometimes take hours to get underway which leaves the riders at a huge disadvantage. The waiting stage is bad news for your body as it will cool down and get less responsive; also it can be hard to keep your mind focused when you’re inactive for this amount of time. This is often when you become most anxious and nervous about what you’re going to do.

So when your name gets called and you’re standing at the top of the in-run what kind of state are you really in? Take a moment to think about it, is your body prepared and active, is you’re your mind sharp and ready, are you in the right state, physically and mentally to performing at your best?

The answer in a lot of cases is ‘no’. Without being aware, you’ll have built up a set of habits that could restrict you from performing at your best. It’s easy to see how this happens, with all these external pressures stacked on top of you the natural reaction is to feel nervous. However when anxiety sets in it can often have a negative effect on your performance.

I think it’s weird we’ve been put on this earth with incredible devices in our head, far more powerful than any computer, the problem being it didn’t come with any instruction manual and actually learning how to use it effectively requires a bit skill in itself. Hopefully this series of blogs will help with that and provide you with some essential ‘buttons to your own brain’. This stuff has had a massive effect on my life and I’m excited so be sharing it with you.

NAS (Neuro Associative Conditioning)

So, if you will, I want you to imagine the impact on your skiing if you could turn on your high-performance state at will. If you could snap into that state of readiness were your confident, strong and in control in a heartbeat. In this blog I want to talk about the science of NAS (Neuro Associative Conditioning) and specifically a term call ‘Anchoring’ which teaches you how to achieve your best psychological state of mind in seconds.

This is used by top athletes, musicians and actors and is essential in order to be resourceful in the moment. An actor must be able to commit himself to the role when the curtain goes up, not an hour before or halfway through the second act.
If you give yourself time to master these techniques I guaranty your riding will not only improve but will become a lot more consistent. So when you’re standing at the top of the in-run, you’ll be charged and confident, physically and mentally in the right frame of mind to perform at your best.

EMOTIONAL STATES

Ok so the first little bomb shell I’d like to drop is that the ONLY difference between you performing well and you performing badly is the state of mind you’re in at the time. Think about it, and this applies to any situation in life but maybe think back to two different days you’ve been riding and try and remember how you felt on those days. Re-live a memory when you were riding at your best, feeling confident and strong, where everything you tried just worked and it all came naturally. Got that, ok cool.

Now think about a day when the opposite happened, you didn’t feel yourself and you couldn’t land anything. Again take a moment to really feel how you felt on this day, if you can make a vivid picture in your head this is a good thing. Now specifically think about your different states of mind in both, think about the difference between them. Your emotional state you were in at the time ultimately was the thing that changed your performance. (That was some dam fine visualising you just did...I patronisingly approve!)

SYNAESTHESIA

So in my first blog I demonstrated how you can create physical responses in your body just by using your imagination. Just by visualising yourself eating a lemon your body reacted as if it were actually real, as you start salivating and smelling lemon (if you haven’t looked at this go back and have a quick gander) We called this process synaesthesia and we can use the same principle again here.

Essentially I’m saying if you vividly imaging a past memory when you were in a high performance state, so your body will change to be in that same state. These physical changes can include the releasing of adrenalin, increased heart rate, more acute sense of hearing and touch and sight. This emotional state activates your entire nervous system and creates an entire biochemical change is our body.

Applying this in a positive way to skiing we can first look at how to create a high performance state at will. Then we can look at ways of making them consistently available and stabilizing them in the here and now.

ANCHORS

Everyone that reads this will have a personal history that is rich in different emotional states. However to make these states consistently available when ever we feel like we need a trigger. This is some association in the present to elicit the original experience.

Our minds naturally link experiences; it is the way we give meaning to what we do. For example, a favourite piece of music might transport you back to a summer when you listened to it none stop. Maybe smelling freshly laid tarmac might magically send you back to your childhood when you first smelt it.

An anchor is anything that anchors an emotional state, and they are so obvious and widespread that we hardly notice them. An alarm clock rings and it is time to get up, a red traffic light means stop. I actually find it a bit scary when you start to analyse how much of human behaviour is actual just conditioned responses to certain stimuli, we all walk round on auto pilot totally unaware. Ha, so there’s space for a big rant here but I’ve decided against it, however it might be interesting to think about the anchors you have in your life and see whether they are affecting you in a positive or negative way.

I know when I started to look at the associations I had unconsciously put in place, I realised my life was unnecessarily limited by fear, and this was often built up from past memories that simply hadn’t been re-evaluated. I want to bring the focus back to riding in a competition but essentially I’m saying you can take whatever experiences in life you find most difficult or challenging and simply re-associate the conditioned response you have with that situation, it’s that simple.

Anchors can be created in one of two ways.
1. Repetition. If you see repeated instances of red being associated with danger we will make an association between them.

2. Secondly, and much more important, anchors can be set in a single instant if the emotion is strong and the timing is right. Repetition is only needed if there is no emotional involvement. Think back to when you were at school and found that something interesting and exciting was easy to learn. Facts that did not interest you needed a lot of repetition. The less emotionally involved you are, the more repetitions are needed to learn the association.

So it is quite probable that when you’re waiting around at the top of the slope you’ve made associations between anxiety and the pressure of competing. Being fearful can easily become a conditioned response that you will naturally feel when you’re in that situation. But it doesn’t have to be. By anchoring in a new set of emotions you can change the way you feel when in this high-pressure situation.

CREATING ANCHOR’S

Ok so instead of writing about this I think it would be more beneficial if you listen to this audio recording I’ve uploaded about how to create you own anchors.

http://soundcloud.com/sonicwolf/anchoring

Four key points for creating anchors.
1. Create a strong, intense emotional state
2. Create anchor at the peak of the emotional state
3. Make sure the anchor is unique
4. Fire the anchor off the same way it got set

The anchor I use to feel energized and charges is linking my little fingers together. Also, rather than just anchor one memory I’ve linked a number of powerful memories on top of each other. My first back flip, my first double back flip, the pistol flip and a number of other memories drawing from that amazing feeling you get from landing a new rick for the first time. I’ve stacked all these memories on top of each other and associate it with something as simple as linking my fingers together. Now the ability to perform at my peak is literally at my fingertips and it’s available whenever I like.

So if you want to be stood at the top of the in-run in the best possible state for a competition I encourage you learn these technique and practice them, they can be incredibly powerful.

It does take a bit of time to master though, when I first read about it years ago I tried without committing 100 % and that didn’t get me anywhere. It’s very much a trail and error process and in this blog I’ve only really scratched the surface of NAS (Neuro Associative Conditioning). Don’t hesitate to get in contact if you’d like to ask me any other questions about it. This stuff can range from improve your skiing or getting rid of life long phobias, so fire away ha.

Until next time.

Peace x

P.S Shameless plug I know but I’m currently in the process of writing an album, as in a musicy one, so if any of you would be intrigued to hear what wonderful noises I can make please follow me on soundcloud.

http://soundcloud.com/sonicwolf

Perfect Learning - It's all in your head

2010-10-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

Intro

Since doing the ‘pistol flip’ in 2008 lots of people have asked me why I did it without practising first, or why not try it into a swimming pool or foam pit. Well the truth is, I did practice it…thousands of times actually. I practiced it until it was inch perfect. However all this practice went on inside my head and in this write up I want to share the idea that visualisation is a powerful way to learn new tricks and improve your skiing!

(I’ll be referencing the pistol flip as an example to illustrate my point about learning, purely as it serves as a good example, before you think I have a man crush on myself and I’m being to self indulgent, ha.)

Gona kick things off by asking, whats your state of mind when you’ve had a bad days riding? Take a moment to think about this.

Do you get annoyed with yourself and feel like your not improving, or maybe question your natural ability as a skier? Are bumps, bruises and other injuries the risk you accept as a skier to improve? This was my thinking until I decided to break down and understand the specific building blocks of my riding.

I believe the Way you train yourself to learn new tricks has the biggest impact on your skiing. If you can learn at your most optimum level, improving and retaining new skills becomes a whole lot easier. The key to success is figuring out the strategies that work best for you!

Analyzing biomechanics and developing precise take offs and landings is a great building block, on which to add tricks. It wasn’t until I questioned the methods of HOW I learn that I figured out the ‘bad habits’ that had crept into my riding. (I plan to write about this in another post though.)

Today I want to look at understanding your body movements when your in the air or on a rail, as this is fundamental to the learning new tricks. So how do you learn to do something that your body has never been done before? Simple…visualisation!

I studied psychology at A-level which sparked my interest in the mind and the concept of learning. Looking back through my old text books I found this exercise which I’d like you to read. When you’ve read it, close your eyes and imagine yourself carrying out the actions.

Exercise 1

‘Your in your kitchen, you take a fresh lemon from the fruit basket. It’s cool as it sits in the palm of your hand, the outer skin looks smooth and waxy. It’s a rather large lemon and heavy for its size. As you raise the lemon to your nose it has that wonderfully characteristic citrus smell. Taking a sharp knife you cut the lemon in half and as the sides fall apart, pale drops of pulpy citrus juice ooooooze out. The smell is now much stronger and it seems to fill the kitchen with a new scent. Finally you bite into the lemon and let the juice swirl around in your mouth.’

Eyes close…imagine!

So what was your physical response when you read that, Did your mouth water? Did you believe you could actually smell the lemon?

Ok this starts to get a bit sciency but if you did have some sort of physiological response then you’ve just experienced something called synaesthesia. Synaethesia is the process of getting a physical sensation from an imagined experience. Nothing actually happened…there was no lemon… your imagination created a physiological response!

This example is meant to illustrate that your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is vividly imagined! So if you practice and visualize tricks in your head your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between that and actually being on the slope practicing. I’m not saying it’s the same thing but I’m suggesting you can do a large amount of your practice without even clipping into a pair of skis.

(You can try the above test on your friend, get them to close there eyes and read the exercise to them, note down any physical responses.)

Pistol Flip

So when I was skiing in summer of 2007 with my friends and we had the idea of doing doubles for the first time, I spent days and days running it though in my head. I played through what I thought this double spin thousands of times, practicing it over and over, looking at it from every angle, making it stronger and more vivid in my imagination.

Although I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time looking back I think this repetition was slowly hard wiring it into my brain. I had pictured it in my head from landing to take off so when the bad weather cleared after 3 or 4 days I was feeling pretty confident.

Visualisation is a powerful skill and everyone can do it, however it can take time to master and use effectively! Below I’ve written some tips on what I’ve found are the best ways to use it and apply it to skiing.

How To

Visualization can be split into 2 different types, Association and Disassociation.

Association, you feel the experience and see the situation through your own eyes. This is extremely valuable when you’re getting a feel for your body moving around in the air and general spatial awareness. Referenced as 1^st position

Disassociation, you imagine seeing yourself doing the trick from another perspective. In this position you allow for a removed sense seeing a trick as an observer, standing on the knuckle of a jump and watching for example. This is extremely valuable for detecting hand and body movements and limitations. Referenced as 2^nd position. This exercise below was again taken out of an old psychology txt book.

Exercise 2: Performing Visualization

1 1. Relax your body with breathing and body exercises.

2. See yourself ready to begin the event. All necessary instruments should be included in your visualization surroundings.

3. Place yourself into 1^st position. Maximize the association of the kinaesthetic channel. (kinaesthetic means movement, so play through and try to feel the movements of your body)

4. Move to 2^nd position and begin to issue technical commands to your nervous system. Issue the commands in the correct order and sequence.

5. Move to 1^st position and begin the physical action

This is a simple excessive If you do this correctly it should allow for complete perfection while learning. It is important to note that an instructor a a detailed program is always essential during the learning process.

Why Visualize

The main benefit about this method of learning is that it can be rehearsed as much as you like, wherever you like. Being English often means you don’t get as much time on snow as American or other European riders. Off the bat this is a huge disadvantage but I think if you master the art of visualization you can claw back some of those hours.

I’ve found the best time is lying in bed before going to sleep. If you do it enough you’ll find it creeping into your dream as well. During the winter I would drift off to sleep thinking about a bunch of new tricks, dream about them, wake up the next day and feel confident enough, knowing I had it down in my own head. Watching ski films really helps this process as well.

Now the other great thing about visualising is no mistakes, you either know it and you can see it feel it and hear it…or u don’t. If you shape the trick correctly, your mind will not allow for error, the result then becomes perfect learning!!

This technique isn’t just for new tricks, its great for working on other things, for example style, slow all your movements down and concentrate on body position, how your grabbing, what position in the trick your looking for the landing and what angle is your body at this moment etc. when skiing it can be hard to think of all these at once. Similarly to when u first learn to drive, to start off with it all seems overwhelming and there’s a lot to remember. Practice makes it become habit and by visualizing you can concentrate on one specific area at a time, practice that individual area until it becoming totally natural and a force of habit.

For this to work effectively it is important to remember that the image in your mind needs to be as vivid and detailed as possible. Make it colourful, look at details, think about your other senses and use them.

Skiing is such a mental thing! Visualization can help to build confidence and belief because if you can see yourself doing a trick from start to finish, stomping the landing and riding away with steeze, then you start to trust your own body and what you can do with it.

As well as fine-tuning your skiing it can also give you a lot less injuries. If you can clearly see and understand what you’re asking your body to do, you’ll be in a far better position to be able to do it. If your on the slope and your unsure of the trick your about to do, stop for a second, make it clear in your mind from start to finish, and only when you feel confident about what your gona do then go for it. Until something becomes second nature it requires a lot of metal though and the majority of my injuries have occurred when I’ve done the opposite to this.

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So I hope other skiers may find this useful and it will help to develop their riding. Bare in mind mastering this skill takes practice and time. I’ve haven’t tort this to others before so im unaware how long it takes. However when this skill is effectively mastered I believe it has tremendous power and can help you learn all kinds of new things with a new found speed!

Next time

Waiting around at a competition and then having to throw down your best run can be demanding. Imagine the impact on your skiing if you could turn on your high-performance state at will. I’ll be talking about a term call ‘anchoring’ and teaching you how to achieve your best psychological state of mind in seconds. This is used by top athletes, politicians and actors.

I’ll also look at how professional dancers shift their minds eye to give them greater balance, and how you can able this to your skiing when it comes to doing rails!

Add me on facebook and ill let you know when ive got more info for ya!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_127607913961425&ap=1